Prospective Losses. 63 



the continent on the occasion of every great European 

 wai, dating from the expulsion of the Goths from Hun- 

 gary by Attila and his Huns, in A. D. 376, down to the 

 ])resent Turkish war, which has secured the extension of 

 the rinderpest to Hungary at least. On these steppes, 

 too, the Russian veterinarians believe the rinderpest, at 

 least, to be an imported disease derived from Eastern and' 

 (Central Asia, yet all their efforts to crush out this or the 

 lung fever, though receiving the freest support from the 

 Eussian Government, have failed. The same conditions 

 exist, to a large extent, at the Cape of Good Hope ; and 

 there, too, the lung fever, imported in 1854, has acquired 

 a permanent residence. 



"Preventive Measures Demanded. 



" Such is the history. Now comes the question preg- 

 nant with weal or woe to our future stock, agricultural 

 and national interests. Shall we learn from the disas- 

 trous experience of others and extirpate the lung plague 

 fi'om the United States while it is still possible, or shall 

 we sit quietly by with folded hands and await the inevit- 

 able, early or late, infection of our open Western stock 

 ranges, and then repeat, for the benefit of other nations, 

 the already twice-told tale of a desperate and extrava- 

 gant but fruitless attempt to suppress a plague which we 

 nave criminally allowed to pass beyond our control? 

 AVith or without a prodigal but vain effort to crush out 

 the poison, the results may be thus summed up : The in- 

 fection of stock-yards, loading-banks, cars and markets, 

 and a general diffusion of the plague over the Eastern 

 States. This would imply a national loss, by cattle dis- 

 ease, like that of England, but much more extensive in 

 ratio with our great numbers of stock. Thus England, 

 with ber 6,000,000 head of cattle, has lost in deaths alone 

 fi'om lung fever in the course of forty years over $500,- 

 000,000. We, therefore, with our 28,000,000, should lose 

 not less than $2,000,000,000 in the same length of time, 

 allowing still a wide margin for the lower average value 



Ser head in America. And this terrible drain is for 

 eaths alone, without counting all the expenses of dete- 

 riorated health in the survivors, of produce lost, of loES 



